Jump to content

"Summertime" - Low Budget Feature in NYC


Recommended Posts

Hi, we are almost finished with our feature film in NYC, called "Summertime", directed by Max Weissberg. Andreas Thalhammer and me are the DOPs on this film.

 

We are shooting on RED in 4K with Cooke S2 lenses in BNCR mount.

 

We have so little budget that we didn't use one single film light, everything is lit from either practicals or home depot style stuff. We rented a few C-Stands, a bit grip and a doorway dolly for a few scenes, and even managed to get a Steadicam shot.

 

Here are a few stills, if you have lighting setup questions, shoot! Otherwise I'd be happy if there's some criticism and suggestions to improve things. Those are just quickly 1-light corrected in Lightroom after I exported TIFF's from the RAWs

 

Some are cropped to 1:1.85 and some are 1:2.35, we are finishing in 1:1.85 but for personal reasons I cropped some to 2.35.

 

summertime1.jpg

 

summertime2.jpg

 

summertime3.jpg

 

summertime4.jpg

 

summertime5.jpg

 

summertime6.jpg

 

summertime7.jpg

 

summertime8.jpg

 

summertime9.jpg

 

summertime10.jpg

Edited by XiaoSu Han
Link to comment
Share on other sites

it's looking awesome

 

that's what i call less but better

 

 

how did you handle that WB with the worm interior?

 

did you go by the ETTR? for exposere?

 

what built did you had?

 

how did you light the soft worm interior of the guy and girl in the living room?

 

 

the only 2 shoots i think are little flat and not that interesting are the girl with the gun at the library and the shoot at the restaurant (the three shoot)

 

but over all great job

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hi

 

this is what i call less but better

 

few q:

 

what built did you used?

 

how did you handle the WB with all this warm practicals and lighting?

 

did you used filter on camera?

 

 

how did you light the soft warm interior of the guy and the girl in the living room?

 

did you used the ETTR for exposure?

 

the dimmed interior look very clean (the blacks)

 

 

 

the only two shoots i didn't liked and i think are flat are the girl with the gun in the library and the three shoot on the restaurant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi!

 

thanks!

 

we used build 20, the latest color science included because we had a substantial part of tungsten lighting and wanted to get the best noise ratio

 

most of the time we left the camera at 5000K

 

no color filters at all

 

for the soft warm interiors we often used unbleached muslin to bounce or shoot through, looking back though I think we should've lit with normal tungsten and just warmed it up in the color grade, would've been better if you needed to change it to a bit cooler look maybe

 

we expose a bit to the right yes, and we set the light meter to iso 250 to ensure there's enough light for the hungry RED ;)

 

 

 

hi

 

this is what i call less but better

 

few q:

 

what built did you used?

 

how did you handle the WB with all this warm practicals and lighting?

 

did you used filter on camera?

 

 

how did you light the soft warm interior of the guy and the girl in the living room?

 

did you used the ETTR for exposure?

 

the dimmed interior look very clean (the blacks)

 

I think it's important that you have to light what you want to see to a proper exposure level and then let go of all the shadow detail, crush blacks where you don't need them and thus avoid unnecessary noise.

 

cheers, Xax

 

the only two shoots i didn't liked and i think are flat are the girl with the gun in the library and the three shoot on the restaurant

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This looks really good, I disagree about the three shot being flat. I love the dimension of the shot being a reflection off a mirror, the little lamp that hangs in the foreground adds a nice depth to the shot.

 

You must be stoked on the look, I dig it a lot man. Let me know when this movie finishes, I would like to see it.

 

Did you do a lot of booklights by bouncing those 500w photofloods into a bounce source and then back through your muslin?

 

Cheers man, this stuff looks awesome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Excellent work. You really exemplify the expression: "Content is king!"

Way to take advantage of a limited budget by making excellent use of composition and location photography. Those are some gorgeous compositions you have there. Must have taken a ton of scouting work, and obtaining all the permits.

You make something that must have been very very difficult look easy.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks a lot for the comments,

 

actually we didn't really have that many permits, for the exteriors yes, but for the interiors we just got lucky locationwise I guess.

 

Also, we didn't have a production designer so we had to dress the sets ourselves.. and we had to change almost every interior completely...

 

As for lighting we either bounced or shone two of those 500w things through muslin.. never did both because then nothing would be left :), also we had some grid cloth and used that if we didn't want the uber-yellow look... We also had a china ball but used it quite rarely... we lit a lot with practical lights where we would just put 500w in them when they were off screen and 150 when they were on...

 

I'll try to put a trailer together soon and am going to post that then!

 

cheers, Xax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Premium Member

was that all available light used in those daylight scenes? those stills look amazing! I'd love to see the film when it's completed! It takes a lot of talent to get images like that with home depot lights! great composition!

 

also, what was the lighting setup in the last still? were one of those 500w's utilized or simply a bulb change in practicals?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey John,

 

yeah only daylight in the day scenes, we had a bunch of reflectors though (lastolite knockoffs) that we carry around.

 

Thanks for the praise, the last setup only involved changing the bulb to a 200w, that's it.

 

I'll have some moving images ready soon, a small reel.

 

cheers, Xax

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...
We wrapped and it's in post now, here's a small cinematography reel quickly put together and one-lighted in Color

 

http://www.stilfabrik.at/footage/summertimereel.mov

 

Inspiring! Proof that one doesn't need tons of equipment to make a film look beautiful!

 

Question about how you lit the shooting range: Was that all practicals or did you add anything to light the subject? I suppose the greenish cast is from the flourescents?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We wrapped and it's in post now, here's a small cinematography reel quickly put together and one-lighted in Color

 

http://www.stilfabrik.at/footage/summertimereel.mov

I really like the photography in that reel. It's great how you lit almost everything with practicals, which gives it a very natural, still cinematic look.

 

The first segment kinda got me interested on the movie itself. ;) What is it about or where can I read more about it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Thanks a lot!!!

 

Here's a directors trailer:

- unfortunately it's encoding is quite bad and we did not do any color correction, but you can see more of the story here :)

 

also, a couple of making of pictures on how we tried to achieve a look without any film lighting:

 

 

m1.JPG

 

m2.JPG

 

m3.JPG

 

m4.JPG

 

m5.JPG

 

m6.JPG

 

m7.JPG

 

m8.JPG

 

m9.JPG

 

m10.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

also, a couple of making of pictures on how we tried to achieve a look without any film lighting:

 

Thanks for the Making Of pictures, it's nice to see how you could archive that wonderful look with so little equipment, but so much determination...

 

Congrats!!

 

JR..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

m6.JPG

 

What's that on top of the bookshelf?

 

m7.JPG

 

On this one, is that 216 on the top portion of the window?

 

And how in the world did you hide your reflection on the windows in the night scenes at the apartment? I tried my darndest to catch one but failed! :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...